01.30.09

Remember, you must love “The One”, or else. He is here to save you from yourself, so you must support him, or else. So let’s go grab an “O” and grin our praises to “The One”, or else.

It took four years for Google to address the “Google bomb” that was lobbed at former President Bush. But it took the Internet behemoth only a few days to defuse the same attack on President Obama.

Four years versus a few days … Some Googlers are asking why.

In 2003, President Bush’s detractors successfully gamed the Google search engine by arranging to have countless Web sites link the words “miserable failure” to Bush’s official biography on the White House Web site. The result was that when someone typed the search term “miserable failure” into the Google search box, Bush’s bio rose to the top of the search results.

And that’s how it stayed until 2007, when Google developed an algorithm to detect what became known as “Google bombs” and re-directed the term “miserable failure” to non-political pages.

Unfortunately for Obama, “miserable failure” reverted back to his bio when he moved into the White House. The new president was also Google-bombed with the phrase “cheerful achievement.”

But this time, Google stepped in quickly, rectifying the situation in a few days, instead of four years.

The difference in time did not go unnoticed.

“You let this go on for the entire Bush administration,” a reader named w3bgrrl wrote on a Google blog. “But since you bought the White House for Obama, you don’t want your candidates harmed … And your claims not withstanding, even liberals know you’re liberal.”

David Limbaugh puts to words a thought that has been rattling around in my head lately:

“[Obama] professes to be open to all ideas but apparently brooks no dissent. He not only does not tolerate dissent well but also really doesn’t even like to be questioned, as we saw during the campaign, when he accused the normally fawning press of grilling him for merely asking a follow-up question. We caught another glimpse of this last week, when he showed irritation at the White House press corps for daring to ask him a policy question after he had decreed that the sole purpose of his visit was to press the flesh.”

JERUSALEM – Accusing the Jewish state of “genocide,” an anti-Israel Palestinian activist once commended by President Obama has predicted the end of Israel, which, he boasted, is “within reach, in our lifetimes.”

In a piece earlier this month titled, “Why Israel won’t survive,” Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian online publication, accused Israel of war crimes and gloated, “Now, the other pillar of Israeli power – Western support and complicity – is starting to crack. We must do all we can to push it over.”

“It is Israel as a Zionist state, not Palestine or the Palestinian people, that cannot survive this attempted genocide. Its problem is legitimacy, or rather a profound and irreversible lack of it,” wrote Abunimah.

Abunimah previously was described as close to Obama and has introduced the politician at pro-Palestinian events. Referring to a time period in the late 1990s, Abunimah said that “Obama used to be very comfortable speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation.”

Abunimah was quoted stating Obama was “quite frank that the U.S. needed to be more evenhanded, that it leaned too much toward Israel.”

He noted Obama’s unusual stance toward Israel, commenting “these were the kind of statements I’d never heard from a U.S. politician who seemed like he was going somewhere, rather than at the end of his career.”

In his piece this month, Abunimah blasted Israel’s three-week campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, accusing the Israel Defense Forces of “massacr[ing] civilians in the hope that the population would turn against those fighting the occupier.”

“The death toll keeps rising as more bodies are pulled from carpet-bombed neighborhoods,” Abunimah claimed.

Israel did not carpet-bomb any area in the Gaza Strip. It carried out surgical precision strikes against specific Hamas targets. The IDF regularly warned civilians of incoming attacks with phone calls or text messages. The IDF routinely employed what it terms “roof knocking” – just prior to a targeted bombing, the building in question would receive a telephone call in Arabic warning that the structure was going to be bombed.

Hamas, on the other hand, was widely condemned for utilizing civilians as human shields and storing weapons and military infrastructure in civilian zones, including apartment buildings.

Oh, sure, every relationship experiences peaks and valleys. But the “mainstream media” wanted Obama to win, and helped him do so. If Obama were a stock, the media would be “fully invested.”

During the Bush administration, we saw many “Big Stories” of “Bad Actions.” Let’s liken these stories to crimes. If Bush committed no crime, they reported an infraction. If he committed an infraction, they reported a misdemeanor. If he committed a misdemeanor, they reported a felony. If he committed a felony, they reported a capital offense. With Obama, the media reverse the procedure. Any future capital offense will get reported as a regular felony, a felony as a misdemeanor and so forth.

Obama’s inauguration showed the double standard on full display. The final tally for all the expenses won’t be out for a few months, but clearly the cost of Obama’s inauguration meets or exceeds Bush’s four years ago, even adjusted for inflation. And expect a higher price for security, in large part because about 400,000 people attended Bush’s last inauguration versus Obama’s 1.5 million to 1.8 million. Obama’s inaugural committee budgeted about $45 million for the fun stuff — such as balls and concerts and parades — with taxpayers putting up $49 million more, and local jurisdictions are asking federal taxpayers for another $75 million to cover their costs.

But back in 2005, when Bush’s second inaugural costs (excluding security) reached $42 million, the media attacked. Unseemly! Exorbitant! Extravagant! How can Bush justify the spending during wartime? Not only does the country remain at war, but our country now suffers a serious recession.

So what do the mainstream media say about Obama’s inaugural “extravagance”? Virtually nothing. One Associated Press article, headlined “For inaugural balls, go for glitz, forget economy,” opened with this lead: “So you’re attending an inaugural ball saluting the historic election of Barack Obama in the worst economic climate in three generations. Can you get away with glitzing it up and still be appropriate, not to mention comfortable and financially viable? To quote the man of the hour: Yes, you can. Veteran ballgoers say you should. And fashionistas insist that you must.” Four years ago, an Associated Press article that attacked Bush’s “extravagant” inauguration listed things $40 million could buy — from Humvees to vaccinations.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Before he was released from Guantanamo, a Saudi detainee insisted he had only wanted to help refugees and was not a fighter. Now, as an Al Qaeda field commander sporting a bandolier of bullets, he is threatening the United States and has been hailed by a militant Web site as a veteran guerrilla and “a fomenter of war.”

The story of Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi underscores the dilemma Barack Obama’s administration finds itself in: Keeping men locked up without trials invites global criticism but releasing them without a fair and diligent process to distinguish enemies from noncombatants exposes the U.S. and its allies to danger. It also shows how hard it is to separate truth from lies.

Al-Oufi was one of two former Saudi detainees at Guantanamo, the U.S. military prison in Cuba, who resurfaced last week in video clips as Al Qaeda fighters in Yemen. Their identities were confirmed in recent days by a U.S. counterterror official. Al-Oufi was detainee number 333 at Guantanamo.

How can we keep repeating ourselves without losing heart? What more is there to say? Telling the truth does not seem to work. The Big Lies, as well as the foul deeds, keep on happening. Expose one lie: A hundred more rise up in its place. Kill 100 Taliban and a hundred more take their places. We, who are still safely behind enemy lines, absolutely must keep documenting the hate speech and the terrorist atrocities; it is a profound form of resistance. One can tell that it is a form of warfare by the considerable toll it takes upon one’s body and soul.

How many times can one document the rise of the new anti-Semitism and the demonization of Israel? I have been doing so since 2001, both in a book (The New Anti-Semitism) and in hundreds, maybe thousands of articles, lectures, interviews. There are now hundreds of us who are also doing this heavy lifting: pundits, bloggers, distinguished authors, grassroots activists, retired folk. Some voices are outraged, many are maddeningly reasonable and consummately accurate. Still, the blood libels keep coming at us, without respite.

How many times can we document the nature of Islamic and terrorist religious and gender apartheid? Again, I and others, have been doing so for many years. Just today: I learned that six Pakistani men gang-raped a 14 year-old girl in front of her bound-and-gagged parents because they are all Christians. The Islamic Republic of Iran just arrested and jailed three converts to Christianity. (Leaving Islam is considered a capital crime). A judge in Egypt told 24 year-old Christian convert, Martha Samuel Makkar, who was caught trying to flee the country, that “If I had a knife I would kill you.” Miraculously, he allowed her to go free. (Her extended family have threatened to kill her).

The Taliban have been shutting down schools for girls in Afghanistan and throwing acid in the faces of those who persist in attending. These human demons are branching out into Swat, Pakistan where they have already destroyed 169 schools for girls. The area is, increasingly, a “no go” zone, even for the Pakistani police, hundreds of whom have been shot, be-headed, or otherwise slain for trying to protect civilians.

Now, the local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, has demanded that civilians listen to him nightly on the radio or risk being lashed or be-headed. Doran outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic activities like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school.” Doran also announces whom he plans to execute the following day. Either one flees or “turns up headless and dumped in the village square.”

One resistance fighter, Pir Samiullah, fought the Taliban. He was killed and buried in a secret location. The Taliban kept be-heading people until they revealed the place of his burial. They dug him up and hung his body in the square. Then, they desecrated it. They also displayed the bullet-ridden body of one of the city’s most famous dancing girls “splayed on the main square.” Another Taliban terrorist, one Maulana Fazlullah, commands hundreds of fighters who roam the valley with “sniper rifles, Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortar tubes…night-vision goggles and flak vests.”

The civilians are terrified. They will not rise up against their tormenters. Thus, even if they are peaceful, moderate Muslims they, like the civilians in Somalia, Sudan, and Gaza, will not stop the advance of the barbarians. Even Nato feels it is losing its battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan due to “tensions within the alliance.”

01.29.09

President Obama overturned the Mexico City policy, meaning that hundreds of millions of your tax dollars will go to groups that aggressively promote and perform abortions. In his inaugural address, the President said that he would free science from its restraints and restore it to its rightful place. Translate that to mean that taxpayers are going to be funding embryo-destructive research (despite the fact that all the successes in such research have come about using adult stem cells).

So it is very clear that the question of life and how we view it, which is central to everything, is on the table. And Christians must be compelled to defend the sanctity of life at every stage, from conception to natural death; it’s integral to the Gospel.

As the late Fr. Richard Neuhaus and I argued in an Evangelicals and Catholics Together document, “…Christians who support the legal license to kill the innocent… [must] consider whether they have not set themselves against the will of God and, to that extent, separated themselves from the company of Christian discipleship.” Strong words.

But the life issue is not just one cause out of many that conservative Christians are concerned with; it is the overriding, overarching issue, with implications for every other issue, as I will be discussing in the next few days.

As we watch the new administration unfold, we must be in constant prayer for our new leader, as the Bible commands. Now I know how politics work, I’m not naive, but the survival of our way of life is at stake. So we must be praying hard-fervently- that President Obama will listen to wise counselors—and then have the courage to do the right thing.

During the U.S presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s handlers vigourously pointed out his Christian faith whenever the misconception arose he may be Muslim (even though the politically correct response should have been his religion doesn’t matter).

Once elected, however, he personally insisted on his middle name being spoken at his swearing-in ceremony.

And now – in a gesture to the Muslim world – he has not only granted the first sit-down interview of his presidency to a pan-Arab television network, but uses the occasion to gush about his Muslim ties.

“I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries,” Obama tells Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief of Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, which is based in Dubai.

Indeed, Obama’s Kenyan father, Barack Sr., was born into a Muslim family – though he became an atheist before arriving in Hawaii, where Obama Jr. was later born.

Obama also famously spent four years as a boy in Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim country.

All that’s fine, except why was no one allowed to talk much about it before he snagged the Electoral College majority?

Obama’s unprecedented decision to shun American domestic networks over his first sit-down appeared aimed at sending a signal to the Muslim world that his administration marks a distinct break with that of George W. Bush.

Like we didn’t get that message from his pledge to close the detention camps at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba without so much as a plan for where he’ll transfer its terror suspects.

But much of the interview, broadcast Tuesday, offered troubling stuff for anyone who believes the West isn’t to blame for the Islamic world’s wrath.

Obama agreed with Melhem’s inference that Bush’s use of terms like “war on terror” and “Islamic fascism” demonized all Muslims.

“I think you’re making a very important point, and that is the language we use matters …” Obama said.

“We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.”

True. But there was nothing particularly Bushist about the “war on terror” term, and a helpful Wikipedia entry explains how it dates at least to the 19th century.

Obama confirmed he intends to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital during the first 100 days of his presidency, but resisted Melhem’s bid to know which one.

Of course, the smart money is on the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, while you can pretty much rule out Baghdad.

“You’re going to see me following through with dealing with a drawdown of troops in Iraq, so that Iraqis can start taking more responsibility,” he said.

Obama explained he is going to educate people in both the United States and the Muslim world on how to get along.

“My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives,” he said.

“My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.”

So that’s the simple formula we’ve been we’ve been missing. Stay tuned to the new president for a couple of deftly worded, and theatrically delivered speeches – and centuries of Western-Islamic division will miraculously disappear.

I was listening to Bill Bennett’s radio show and this guy calls in, all upset that he voted for Barack Obama. So then the disgruntled caller was asked why he’d voted the way he did? The man – a white construction worker – replied he’d been angry and wanted to punish the Republicans.” But now it turns out he regrets having voted for Obama, due to that recent statement by the new administration’s Rob Reich…you know – the one about how they would NOT be helping white construction workers? This guy then admitted to Bennett, that he knew he’d been selfish in casting his vote. Yes, the construction worker confessed he ignored all warnings re: candidate Obama, because while punishing Republicans, he also felt that President Obama might help him personally. Hmmm…with all the concerns about Obama’s radical ties, etcselfish?

Do ya think?

This is annoying enough, but then there are those who were concerned during the election, but now seem even more upset by Obama’s less than bipartisan first week. Perhaps they’d lulled themselves into a false sense of security because Obama had a friendly meal over at George Will’s house?

Is anybody really surprised by Obama’s Gitmo order or his rescinding the New Mexico deal with funding for abortions? Is anyone stunned that the so-called “Stimulus package” is a Christmas wish list for Democrat constituencies? (Though in actuality, they’d reject the term “Christmas” They’d call it a “Holiday Wish List”)

At least Obama’s first Presidential interview as President reached out to the Christian Broadcast Network and Jewish Television (wait a sec…he didn’t do that) …he went on Arabic Television.

So now we watch with baited breath as not-so-healing leftist fringe goals are rolled out, like those trailers of coming attractions that completely wear you out – before the film that you’d hoped to see in the first place!

JERUSALEM – Following scores of denials he would trumpet the plan, President Obama today hailed a so-called “Saudi Peace Initiative,” which offers normalization of ties with the Jewish state in exchange for extreme Israeli concessions.

Defenders of Israel warn the plan would leave the Jewish state with truncated, difficult-to-defend borders and could threaten Israel’s Jewish character by compelling it to accept millions of foreign Arabs.

WND was first to report last November advisers to then-presidential candidate Obama gave positive reception in meetings with Arab diplomats to the Saudi plan – but the reports were strongly denied by Obama’s campaign.

Today, in an interview with an Arab television network – his first formal interview as president – Obama trumpeted the Saudi initiative:

“Well, here’s what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. … I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage to put forward something that is as significant as that. I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace. I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what’s happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Obama said he “believes” that there are “Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side.”

In November, WND quoted a top Arab diplomatic source stating Obama advisers held meetings with Arab countries in which the Saudi Initiative was “very present.”

The source said in most cases it was the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, that stressed the importance of the plan. He said Obama’s advisers expressed a positive attitude toward the plan, but he stopped short of confirming a London Times article that claimed Obama would make the plan a central part of his Mideast policy.

Then-senior Obama Mideast adviser Dennis Ross flatly denied the Times report, which quoted a source close to Obama stating that the president-elect intended to throw his support behind the Arab plan. Ross is now Obama’s Mideast envoy.

One senior Obama adviser was quoted telling the Times that on a visit to the Middle East last July, Obama said privately to the Palestinian leadership it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse the Saudi Initiative, which Obama purportedly said could “give them peace with the Muslim world.”

Although Ross denied Obama would trumpet the Arab plan, Israeli President Shimon Peres told the British in November that in conversations he held with the president-elect, Obama proclaimed himself “very impressed” with the the Saudi plan, which was ratified by the Arab League. Peres was responding to questions about whether he thought Obama would advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in general and the Saudi plan in particular.

Initiative threatens Jewish state

The Saudi Initiative, originally proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2002, states that Israel would receive “normal relations” with the Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip, West Bank, Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem, which includes the Temple Mount.

The West Bank contains important Jewish biblical sites and borders central Israeli population centers, while the Golan Heights looks down on Israeli civilian zones and twice was used by Syria to mount ground invasions into the Jewish state.

The Saudi plan also demands the imposition of a non-binding U.N. resolution that calls for so-called Palestinian refugees who wish to move inside Israel to be permitted to do so at the “earliest practicable date.”

Palestinians have long demanded the “right of return” for millions of “refugees,” a formula Israeli officials across the political spectrum warn is code for Israel’s destruction by flooding the Jewish state with millions of Arabs, thereby changing its demographics.

When Arab countries attacked the Jewish state after its creation in 1948, some 725,000 Arabs living within Israel’s borders fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel. Also at that time, about 820,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries or fled following rampant persecution.

While most Jewish refugees were absorbed by Israel and other countries, the majority of Palestinian Arabs have been maintained in 59 U.N.-run camps that do not seek to settle its inhabitants elsewhere.

There are currently about 4 million Arabs who claim Palestinian refugee status with the U.N., including children and grandchildren of the original fleeing Arabs; Arabs living full-time in Jordan; and Arabs who long ago emigrated throughout the Middle East and to the West.

According to Arab sources close to the Saudi Initiative, Arab countries are willing to come to an agreement whereby Israel absorbs about 500,000 “refugees” and reaches a compensation deal with the PA for the remaining millions of Palestinians.

Obama advisers back Arab plan

Some top Obama current and former advisers have recently endorsed the Arab Initiative. The Times referenced a partisan group of senior foreign policy advisers who urged Obama to give the Arab plan top priority immediately after his election victory, including Lee Hamilton, the former co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democratic former national security adviser. Brent Scowcroft, a Republican former national security adviser, also joined in the appeal.

At least three times racism has raised its head in the new administration of President Obama, and now his chief spokesman has cited “membership policies” as an explanation for the all-whites-are-banned practice of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs responded to the question from Les Kinsolving, WND’s correspondent at the White House, following the conclusion of today’s press briefing at the White House.

“To your knowledge has the president ever disagreed with the expressed hope that children ‘could live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character’ as made by Dr. King,” Kinsolving asked.

“Has he ever … ,” Gibbs asked.

“Disagreed,” Kinsolving finished.

“Not that I know of, no. I think he believes that’s the goal of this country,” Gibbs said.

Kinsolving continued, “Since the members of Congress who have applied to join the Congressional Black Caucus have been turned down because, as the black caucus’ William Lacey Clay put it, ‘they are white and the caucus is black,’ my question: Does the president hope the caucus will stop this racial discrimination?”

“There have been three of them who have applied and they’ve been turned down because they are not black, and that is the policy of the Congressional Black Caucus, and if you can ask the president, I would be delighted to hear,” Kinsolving said.

“I think the first thing to do is ask members of … ,” Gibbs aid.

“I have. I have,” Kinsolving confirmed.

“… what their membership policies are,” Gibbs said.

As WND reported, U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., was refused permission to join the organization because of his race.

Kinsolving recently documented in his WND column how Anh (“Joseph”) Cao, the Vietnamese-American Republican from Louisiana who defeated the re-election bid of New Orleans Democrat William Jefferson, expressed an interest in joining because the district he represents is predominantly black.

Also, in 2007, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who is white, pledged to apply for membership during his election campaign to represent his constituents, who were 60 percent black. It was reported that although the bylaws of the caucus do not make race a prerequisite for membership, former and current members of the caucus agreed that the group should remain “exclusively black.”

Kinsolving reported Clay said, “Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. He’s white and the caucus is black. It’s time to move on. We have racial policies to pursue and we are pursuing them, as Mr. Cohen has learned. It’s an unwritten rule. It’s understood.”

Kinsolving said Clay later issued an official statement from his office: “Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept – there has been an unofficial congressional white caucus for over 200 years, and now it’s our turn to say who can join the ‘the club.’ He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives.”

Charges of racism arose after posting of a video showing top Obama economic adviser Robert Reich saying he wanted to make sure economic stimulus money didn’t go to just “white male construction workers.”

Also as WND reported, Democratic Party strategist Donna Brazile admitted she swiped Obama’s complimentary blanket from his inauguration ceremony and then joked it was not a criminal offense because, “We have a black president … this was free.”

Also, outrage erupted over the inauguration benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery, the 87-year-old civil rights pioneer, for asking God to help mankind work for a day when “white would embrace what is right.”

Obama, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus while on Capitol Hill, reacted to the benediction with a smile.

That’s right folks. Under the so-called “stimulus” plan that the Obama crew is ramming through congress, there is a little know part to it that would compel your medical providers, without your consent or ability to opt out, to give the government your medical records.
My first question would be: why are my medical conditions any concern of theirs? Of course, if one was planning on nationalizing health care, involuntarily seizing all the medical records would be the first place to start.Jennifer Rast over at the Scriptorium has this to say:

Without much coverage from the media, and no mention of it from the President or Congress, Obama’s “stimulus” plan contains a provision to force every single American to submit their medical records to a government controlled electronic medical records database. There would be no way to opt out, because choice is only a good thing if you want to murder a baby.

Some of you may not have a problem with hundreds of thousands of agencies having access to information about your health, mental health records, whether you’ve been an obedient patient or not, and more. Most Americans, however, probably don’t want every detail of their medical history accessible to millions of people. Personally, I don’t want the Federal Government keeping that kind of information about me in a database, because I don’t trust our government to use it responsibly, especially with rabid supporters of the culture of death now in power. Pelosi’s population control plans could take on a whole new direction with that kind of information at her fingertips. It’s happened before in this country, and that was before God was kicked out of our government, schools, and the public square.

Judging by the drooling and groveling going on in meetings between Obama and leaders in the GOP, we can’t count on them to stop this power grab without an uprising from their constituents. Everyone should be writing their representatives in Congress, and calling, or faxing if possible. They need to know we don’t want this, and that there must, at the very least, be a provision for people to opt out of the system if they have concerns about privacy.

Read the whole news story here:

A little-discussed provision in President Obama’s economic stimulus plan would demand that every American submit to a government program for electronic medical records without a choice to opt out, and it has privacy advocates more than a little alarmed.

Patients might be alarmed, too, privacy advocates said, if they realized information such as documentation on abortions, mental health problems, impotence, being labeled as a non-compliant patient, lawsuits against doctors and sexual problems could be shared electronically with, perhaps, millions of people.

Sue A. Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, said unless people have the right to decide “if and when” their health information is shared, there is no real privacy.

“President Obama has pledged to advance freedom,” she said. “Therefore the freedom to choose not to participate in a national electronic health-records system must be upheld.”

Blevins’ organization, one of the few raising the alarm at this point, said the stimulus plan would impose an electronic health records system on every person in the U.S. without any provision for seeking patient consent or allowing them not to participate.

“Without those protections, Americans’ electronic health records could be shared – without their consent – with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health-records network,” Blevins said.

The organization said Americans who care about health privacy should contact members of Congress and the president to let them know about the need for opt-out and consent provisions.

According to the institute, the measure currently includes plans for:

* An electronic health record “for each person in the United States by 2014.”

* A national coordinator to develop a “nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information.”

The institute said the medical privacy rule established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 already allows personal health information to be passed along without patient consent for treatment, payment and “oversight.” The recipients of such information could be any of the people in the 600,000 organizations in the industry.

“Nobody wants to stop the proper use of good technology,” Blevins said, “and for some people privacy is not an issue.”

But she said the bottom line is that patients “would end up losing control of his or her personal health information.”

“There’s a lot at stake with electronically transferring health data and paying claims within the $2.2 trillion healthcare industry,” warned the organization, which works on issues of health freedom in the U.S.

Another group, Consumer Watchdog, even suggested today Google is trying to lobby for the “sale of electronic medical records.”

The group said, “Reportedly Google is pushing for the provisions so it may sell patient medical information to its advertising clients on the new ‘Google Health’ database.”

Consumer Watchdog said, “Americans will benefit from an integrated system capable of making our medical records available wherever we may need them, but only if the system is properly used.

“The medical technology portion of the economic stimulus bill does not sufficiently protect patient privacy, and recent amendments have made this situation worse. Medical privacy must be strengthened before the measure’s final passage,” the group said.

WND previously has reported on attempts in Minnesota by state lawmakers to authorize the collection and warehousing of newborns’ DNA without parental consent.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been successful in stopping the action there so far.

As President Obama pushes for the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison, the debate over where to house the terror detainees being held there is heating up.

An exclusive video of a former Gitmo detainee’s martyrdom tape, obtained by FOX News, is a reminder of the concerns that terror suspects — who have been held but released from Guantanamo Bay — are increasingly returning to the fight against the United States and its allies.

Abdallah Ali al-Ajmi was transferred back to his home country of Kuwait after his release from Guantanamo in 2005. Last April he blew himself up in a homicide attack that killed 12 people in Mosul, Iraq.

Al-Ajmi, known in Guantanamo as Detainee 220, made his martyrdom tape before the attack.

“In the name of Allah, most compassionate, most merciful and prayers and peace be upon our Prophet,” al-Ajmi says in the video. “I thank Allah, Lord of the Worlds, who freed me from Guantanamo prison and, after we were tortured, connected me with the Islamic State of Iraq [ISI]. And it is the gift of Allah to follow the path of this nation, the ISI.”

In the video, translated by the NEFA Foundation, a non-profit that tracks terror groups, al-Ajmi mentions Guantanamo Bay right away. For many jihadists, having served time at Guantanamo is seen as a badge of honor.

Click here to visit the NEFA Foundation Web site.

Al-Ajmi’s attack is one of the most well known and well documented cases of an ex-Gitmo detainee returning to the battlefield as a homicide bomber. His video renews concerns of many in the intelligence community of the potential consequences by releasing these prisoners.

Sixty-two detainees released from the U.S. Navy base prison in Cuba are believed to have rejoined the fight, said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, citing data from December. That’s up from 37 as of March 2008, Morrell said.

The new figures come as President-elect Barack Obama issued an executive order last week to close the controversial prison. It’s unlikely, however, that the Guantanamo detention facility will be closed anytime soon as Obama weighs what to do with the estimated 250 Al Qaeda, Taliban or other foreign fighter suspects still there.

Barely in office, America’s brand new president and his secretary of state are already moving fast to position themselves on the so-called Israeli-”Palestinian” conflict.

Shining like new pennies, bolstered by the massive national wave of feel-good optimism, they stood in front of the television cameras last Thursday and drew up their battle plans, declaring their intentions and appointing the man who will spearhead their efforts to realize success on the ground.

We will – said Hillary Rodham Clinton as she introduced new envoy George Mitchell – be adopting a “robust” approach.

Mitchell is due in Jerusalem tomorrow. It looks like Obama is already moving to engage the enemy here.

Who, one might ask, is that enemy?

To best answer, let’s identify America’s “friends.”

Obama’s first telephone call from the Oval Office last Wednesday, the day after his inauguration, was to Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The president promised the terrorist-in-a-tie that his new administration would be pushing ahead towards the “two-state-solution.”

Obama also saw to it Tuesday that his first television interview was addressed to the Arab-Islamic world. “Americans are not your enemies,” he told Al-Arabiya TV.

“We sometimes make mistakes — we have not been perfect.”

Muslims attacked America on 9-11. Muslims have been triggering and waging war all around the globe, often aimed at America’s interests, but the US president tells Muslims AMERICA has made mistakes!?

Who, WHO is the enemy in Obama and Clinton’s eyes?

Is it the Arab world, that for decades has ganged up on Israel and asserted effort after effort to destroy the state which has 950-times less land than the Arabs do?

Is it the Arab regimes of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, whose rejection of the Jews’ right to their homeland has been the primary factor responsible for the instability in the Middle East that has so detrimentally affected the interests of the United States and the rest of the western world?

Is it the countries which, endowed with stupendous wealth, threaten – and sometimes make good on their threat – to hold the oil-reliant nations hostage unless they dance to their Arab tune?

Is it the vicious abusers of human and women’s rights, who torture their opponents in medieval dungeons, forbid – on pain of death – the personal choice of their people to convert from Islam to Christianity – or to sell their land to a Jew; and condemn their own citizens to live in poverty while they spend billions of dollars pursuing more advanced weapons with which to attack Israel?

Is it the opportunistic despots who traditionally have chosen to side with America’s foes and only – transparently – agreed to become America’s “allies” when other options have been closed to them and/or in exchange for the goodies such an alliance can bring?

Is it the people who break out in singing and hand out candy to celebrate jihadist attacks on the United States and the murdering of thousands of American citizens; the people who burn the Stars and Stripes and trample the ashes into the dirt while spewing out their hatred for the Great Satan; the people who make an instant hero out of a “journalist” who flings his shoes at the president of the despised and abhorred United States?

Are these countries the enemy?

Or is the Obama administration – not withstanding its repeated pledges of friendship and fealty to Israel’s security – soon to discover that it is Israel who will get in the way of its policies, program and “peace” plan for the Middle East?

Will the bad boy on the block for America quickly become the small state under its proud Star of David, surrounded by belligerent and bullying regimes who have steeped their people in antisemitism and for decades promised them, day-after-day, the spoils that will be theirs when they have finally vanquished the Jew?

Will the enemy be the only Middle Eastern nation that shares America’s values of democracy, freedom of the press and respect for human rights?

Will the – eventual if not immediate – enemy be the nation whose forefathers gave America the Bible on which their legal system and a great deal of their national history and values have been built?

Will the enemy be the remnant of a nation which, against all imaginable odds, managed to survive centuries of assorted and often terribly effective efforts to annihilate them simply because of who they are as a nation and Who they represent?

Will the Obama administration’s enemy be this little land whose people look, almost fawningly, to the US for friendship, swearing allegiance to the American flag in almost the same breath with which they swear allegiance to their own?

America, under its new liberal leaders, will soon begin to turn the screws on Jerusalem.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched an online petition to express outrage at conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for saying he wanted President Obama to “fail.”

“Jobs, health care, our place in the world — the stakes for our nation are high and every American needs President Obama to succeed,” the petition reads. “Stand strong against Rush Limbaugh’s Attacks — sign our petition, telling Rush what you think of his attacks on President Obama.”

The petition comes after Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill Friday that they need to quit listening to Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

One White House official confirmed the comment but said he was simply trying to make a larger point about bipartisan efforts.

On Monday, Limbaugh shot back at Obama, opening his show by saying, “I’m the man you should not be listening, according to President Obama.”

“I think [Obama] wants me to fail,” Limbaugh said. “He’s more frightened of me than he is of John Boehner, which doesn’t say much for our party.”

The remarks came after Limbaugh said last week on his radio show: “If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid down. I don’t want this to work. So I’m thinking of replying to this guy, say ‘okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails’.”

The committee’s online petition includes a YouTube video featuring audio clips of the radio host’s recent remarks.

During his first week in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year. Later communications from his office disclose that he hasn’t yet fully explored the potentially negative consequences of closing the facility. The problem, he said, is more complicated than it first appeared. This raises a number of questions, Mr. Gibbs:

–How can President Obama credibly maintain that the issue is more complicated than he thought, when people have been raising these problems for years? Is he just now discovering that there are serious consequences involved, or did he already know and finesse the issue during the campaign for political purposes? If he didn’t know (and even more so if he did know), doesn’t he owe former President George W. Bush an apology for his unfair criticisms? Doesn’t he owe the American people an explanation as to how he could possibly have been unaware of such rudimentary aspects of this fundamentally important national security issue?

–Given that he now concedes there are unexplored complications, wasn’t it precipitous and imprudent of him to issue the closure order? What if further research indicates there are no reasonable alternatives other than to bring these prisoners to the U.S. mainland and grant them the full panoply of constitutional rights? Or does he actually favor full-blown constitutional rights for terrorists? If so, will he not be leading America back to its pre-Sept. 11, 2001, mindset, which treated terrorism as a law enforcement matter rather than a military one?

–Democratic Rep. John Murtha praised the Gitmo closure order as a “first key step in restoring America’s image and credibility in the world.” Murtha said, “The problem with Guantanamo was never about its bricks and mortar â€¦ (but) that its very existence stains and defies the moral fiber of our great nation.” Based on the president’s repeated statements, it’s obvious that he essentially agrees with Murtha that the primary problem Gitmo poses is its effect on America’s image in the international community. That being the case, why won’t the president’s simultaneous executive order banning “torture” rectify this supposed image problem, thereby allowing us to preserve the facility and avoid these complicated issues concerning its closure? After all, if, as Murtha says, it’s not about the bricks and mortar, then why don’t we keep using the same bricks and mortar and handle our image problem with clear publications of the president’s orders forbidding enhanced interrogation techniques? Isn’t the honest answer that the president is more worried about his image with his hard-core anti-war base than America’s image internationally? But if I’m wrong and his overriding concern truly is with international opinion, then could you please explain why he and other Democrats are constantly exaggerating and mischaracterizing the alleged incidents of abuse? We know there were only three cases in which waterboarding was used. Also, if America’s image is the problem, why does Mr. Obama continue to sanction the charge that the Bush administration was behind the regrettable incidents at Abu Ghraib, when the evidence indicates it did not authorize them and swiftly punished those who were culpable? Wouldn’t it better serve America’s international image if the Obama administration made clear to other nations that these were renegade acts never authorized by the Bush administration? Or would the damage to the president’s image with the fringe left from such a clarification be a price he’s unwilling to pay, even if it would serve his stated goal of repairing America’s image?

–What if the president’s further study reveals that our national security strongly militates in favor of keeping Gitmo open? Is the president prepared to say he is more concerned with America’s image than its safety?

–In that the president has decided, categorically, to forbid whatever he believes constitutes “torture,” could you please explain to the American people what alternative techniques he might implement that are reasonably designed to extract lifesaving information from terrorists? We do know, do we not, that information gleaned through these controversial techniques prevented real attacks and saved real lives? If the president is aware of no effective alternative techniques, will he tell the American people that he’d rather terrorist attacks occur and American lives be lost than debatable techniques be imposed? With all due respect, it is not a sufficient answer to say that in theory, enhanced interrogation techniques don’t work, because we know that in reality, they do — and did.

–Now, could we please turn to the question of abortion and consider how President Obama’s controversial executive order will fulfill his campaign promise to bring America together?

01.27.09

Despite America’s inspirational legacy, this has not always been an exceptionally tolerant nation and there are few Americans who would deny that. That being said, we’ve now gone so far in the opposite direction that it has become problematic as well. Tolerance taken to an extreme has actually impeded our ability to rationally discuss vitally important issues that will determine whether our country continues to be successful and prosperous over the long haul.

For example, the debate over gay marriage consists largely of one side talking about thousands of years of human experience and a potential devaluing of marriage that could lead to more society-damaging out-of-wedlock births in the future — while the opponents of traditional marriage throw tantrums, try to get people fired for disagreeing with them, and shriek “homophobe” at the top of their lungs. This is highly ironic given that twenty years ago, most gay activists denied, publicly at least, that gay marriage was even on their radar at all.

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Then there’s the dilemma posed to us by the war on terror. Most Muslims are moderate and are not hostile to our country. However, there is no reliable way to tell the moderate Muslims from the Islamic radicals who want to see us dead. Moreover, the moderate Muslims are usually very silent about the actions of the radicals and even tend to quietly support them when they engage in objectionable practices that have been previously held in contempt by Western civilization. In European nations, we’ve seen unconscionable restrictions imposed on free speech, Sharia tacitly accepted as the law of the land in certain areas, significant Islam related increases in rape and violence, and in some cases, non-Muslim women forced to take up the veil for their own protection. Shouldn’t we be having a real back-and-forth exchange, free of shouts of “Islamophobia” — about how to avoid importing the problems we’re seeing in France, Britain, and the Netherlands into our country?

If you’ll notice, these are all extraordinarily important issues that will ultimately have a great deal to do with whether our children live in a nation as great as the one we grew up in. Can we continue to be the pre-eminent nation in the world if we give the short-shrift to these momentous topics just because a few people claim to be offended?

Here’s the reality: 95% of the time, if not more, when people yowl about racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, hatred of the poor, the environment, old people, etc., it’s not true. Worse yet, most of the people doing the shouting KNOW IT’S NOT TRUE. They’re merely crying wolf for political gain because they believe they may benefit personally from it — or in the case of organizations like the NAACP, La Raza, GLAAD, CAIR, NOW and the alphabet soup of other groups that make a living off of having grievances, because it keeps them rolling in money and publicity.

My partner Terry has a book coming out next week–The American Apocalypse. The book deals with the burning question, “What role will the U.S. play in end-times prophecy?” Since most of those who are reading this article live in America , it’s a very important subject to cover.

Terry believes that the U.S. will not play a prominent role in the end times. Of course, this is a stunning change for a nation that has been a major actor on the world stage for the past 100 years. He gives several reasons that Uncle Sam is mostly absent from Bible prophecy.

One factor, I think, really stands out from the growing list of perils facing our nation. The greatest threat to the well-being of America is not our dependence on foreign oil, terrorism, the national debt, nuclear war, or moral decay. What will likely doom the United States is the rapture of the Church.

I’m always getting emails from people who say they can’t wait until we Christians are taken in the rapture. They certainly have no real comprehension of what they are wishing for. The Bible says that we are the salt of the earth; this is a key reason America has become so great a nation.

In the past few weeks, I have noticed that several end-time writers have focused on a problem that should have been obvious years ago, but that only now has come to light. When the rapture takes place, the disappearance of 30 to 80 million born-again believers will be cataclysmic for the United States.

Our nation is already in a moral and financial pickle. The sudden loss of 10 to 20 percent of the population would doom the U.S. to third-world status. As Terry writes in his new book, “Government is totally disrupted, and the powers-that-be quickly recognize that not even martial law is going to be able to reestablish the revenue basis for carrying on government as usual. Much of the workforce, particularly the most vital, skilled force that is the heart and soul of American industry and fidelity to the good work ethic, has disappeared in that stupefying moment.”

The rapture may cripple America, but the rest of the world will escape with little impact. The obvious reason this will largely be an American problem is that all other industrialized nations have a population base with far fewer Christians. It is no secret that the number of European Christians has sharply declined over time. About every poll I’ve seen shows the number of true believers in Europe at around 2 percent. In the Middle East, the number of people claiming Christ as Savior is less than one percent.

What makes Terry’s book so timely is how God generally operates. Right before the Lord pours out His judgment, He always sends a warning. Even during the tribulation–a time of judgment–God sends out His messengers to warn people to repent. When they fail to turn from their wickedness, the Lord gives the order to move forward with greater wrath on a sinful world. “And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk” (Rev. 9:20).

Terry’s book is being published by Harvest House, who plans to heavily promote The American Apocalypse to get it into as many outlets as possible. We were told this is something they only do with a hand full of books each year. Terry will also be doing dozens of radio interviews to get the end-time message out to people. I ask everyone at Rapture Ready to pray that God will bless the book.

The best place to purchase a copy of The American Apocalypse: Is the United States in Bible Prophecy? is at your local bookstore or at an on-line retailer. Here is a link to the book’s listing at Amazon.com: The American Apocalypse.

I wrote yesterday that the Pali terrorist would break the truce “within weeks, if not days”. I was right.

JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants detonated a bomb next to an Israeli army patrol along the border with Gaza Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding three others in the first serious clash since a cease-fire went into effect more than a week ago.

Israeli soldiers quickly crossed the border in search of the attackers, and Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said Israel “cannot accept” the attack.

“We will respond, but there is no point in elaborating,” Barak said in comments released by his office.

The incident jolted the calm that has largely prevailed since Israel ended a devastating three-week offensive on Jan. 17. Since withdrawing its troops, Israel has threatened to strike hard at any violations of the truce.

Heavy gunfire was audible along the border in central Gaza and Israeli helicopters hovered in the air firing machine gun bursts, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli jet broke the sound barrier and set off a loud sonic boom over Gaza City not long afterward, possibly as a warning, but there were no further reports of Israeli retaliation.

The Israeli military said the bomb targeted an Israeli patrol near the border community of Kissufim.

It was not clear if the bomb had been planted after the cease-fire took hold, or whether it was an older device. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.